4 ms·

Can someone explain to me the innovation here, besides some page-transition eye-candy? > Furthermore, portals can also overwrite the main URL address bar, mean

by lqet 7y ago

Can someone explain to me the innovation here, besides some page-transition eye-candy? > Furthermore, portals can also overwrite the main URL address bar, meaning they are useful as a navigation system Isn't this already possible with iframes and target="_top" / target="_parent"? You can also use the <base>-Tag inside the iframe. > The advantage over using Portals over classic links is that the content inside portals can be pre-loaded while the user scrolls through a page, and be ready to expand into a new page without having the user wait for it to load. What? What about the vast majority of links that appear in-line, in text (think Wikipedia). What about the increased bandwidth usage for pre-loaded pages I don't intend to visit? What about the obvious tracking issues? What about the further increased difficulty for users to even tell which page they are actually on, if the transition to another page is now smooth and not clear-cut? This article makes it seem like <portal> magically removes all the security concerns people had for decades with iframes, which imho is not the case at all.

true_religion 7y ago
With regards to bandwidth from pages you do not want to visit, sites can already include content that you do not care about in the page manually as part of the initial HTML or later via AJAX. In fact, the use case for portals covers this in that news sites commonly add other IMO irrelevant articles at the end of articles that I am reading.
clairity 7y ago
> "what about the obvious tracking issues?" frankly, tracking seems to be a primary purpose of the portal tag. it takes the imperative away from the user so that the server can make the decision about what you see and how intrusive it can be. the point seems to be to shift control to google.
- ehsankia 7y ago
  How is prefetching taking the imperative away about what you see? You can click or not click. As for "tracking", the website could already ping as many servers as it wanted in the background, it's not like it can do anything new here. I honestly don't see how the server gets any more "power" than it already did.
  - tbirrell 7y ago
    If I go to foo.com, I generally expect that bar.com, baz.com, and qux.com are not also loading. We already have enough issues with tracking pixels, but now we'll have to worry about multiple sites worth of trackers (which I'm sure google will do their absolute best to obfuscate behind the background network call and other sandboxing shenanigans)? No thanks.
    - Liron 7y ago
      But the Portal element won't exacerbate this issue vs what sites are already doing with iFrames and custom JS.
    - ehsankia 7y ago
      As you mention, foo.com could just as well have pixel trackers/scripts from bar.com, baz.com and qux.com. Nothing about portals makes it any more or less of an issue than it already is.
      - throwaway2048 7y ago
        Its completely different because now baz.com gets control over foo.com in an invisible way just by virtue of "linking" with a portal. (and you can be sure that anyone that dosen't allow google to "portal" their pages will be damnatio memoriae'd into oblivion on results pages)
        ehsankia 7y ago
        baz.com doesn't take control over foo.com, and it's not invisible. You click on a link and the domain changes, it's as old as the internet itself. The only difference is that the new page will be embedded into the old one, instead of there being a clear cut transition.
        chronicler 7y ago
        Everyone seems to have just jumped into the 'Google is evil' bandwagon without even putting thought into it.
jakeogh 7y ago
Furthermore, portals can also overwrite the main URL address bar hahahaha. O goog you are so transparent.
_bxg1 7y ago
The main limitation on using frames/iframes for different sections of the same UI was that they couldn't impact the primary URL, which means if you click a link in one of them, then reload the page, the frame gets reset to its default view. Charitably, I can see some small benefit to the idea of having "frames but they aren't bad", instead of having every JS framework reimplement its own view routing. Uncharitably, this probably just gives Google more ability to track/control your interaction with sites that it links you to.
burtonator2011 7y ago
> What? What about the vast majority of links that appear in-line, in text (think Wikipedia). What about the increased bandwidth usage for pre-loaded pages I don't intend to visit? What about the obvious tracking issues? These already exist. You can do <link> prefetch now ... But I THINK they are doing preload now as well so the DOM can be pre-cached. I mean you could do it on your own site but most people try to make sites FASTER not slower. I still don't grok the main advantages of Portals though.

by lqet 7y ago

true_religion 7y ago

With regards to bandwidth from pages you do not want to visit, sites can already include content that you do not care about in the page manually as part of the initial HTML or later via AJAX. In fact, the use case for portals covers this in that news sites commonly add other IMO irrelevant articles at the end of articles that I am reading.

clairity 7y ago

> "what about the obvious tracking issues?" frankly, tracking seems to be a primary purpose of the portal tag. it takes the imperative away from the user so that the server can make the decision about what you see and how intrusive it can be. the point seems to be to shift control to google.

ehsankia 7y ago
How is prefetching taking the imperative away about what you see? You can click or not click. As for "tracking", the website could already ping as many servers as it wanted in the background, it's not like it can do anything new here. I honestly don't see how the server gets any more "power" than it already did.
- tbirrell 7y ago
  If I go to foo.com, I generally expect that bar.com, baz.com, and qux.com are not also loading. We already have enough issues with tracking pixels, but now we'll have to worry about multiple sites worth of trackers (which I'm sure google will do their absolute best to obfuscate behind the background network call and other sandboxing shenanigans)? No thanks.
  - Liron 7y ago
    But the Portal element won't exacerbate this issue vs what sites are already doing with iFrames and custom JS.
  - ehsankia 7y ago
    As you mention, foo.com could just as well have pixel trackers/scripts from bar.com, baz.com and qux.com. Nothing about portals makes it any more or less of an issue than it already is.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      Its completely different because now baz.com gets control over foo.com in an invisible way just by virtue of "linking" with a portal. (and you can be sure that anyone that dosen't allow google to "portal" their pages will be damnatio memoriae'd into oblivion on results pages)
      - ehsankia 7y ago
        baz.com doesn't take control over foo.com, and it's not invisible. You click on a link and the domain changes, it's as old as the internet itself. The only difference is that the new page will be embedded into the old one, instead of there being a clear cut transition.
        chronicler 7y ago
        Everyone seems to have just jumped into the 'Google is evil' bandwagon without even putting thought into it.

jakeogh 7y ago

Furthermore, portals can also overwrite the main URL address bar hahahaha. O goog you are so transparent.

_bxg1 7y ago

The main limitation on using frames/iframes for different sections of the same UI was that they couldn't impact the primary URL, which means if you click a link in one of them, then reload the page, the frame gets reset to its default view. Charitably, I can see some small benefit to the idea of having "frames but they aren't bad", instead of having every JS framework reimplement its own view routing. Uncharitably, this probably just gives Google more ability to track/control your interaction with sites that it links you to.

burtonator2011 7y ago

> What? What about the vast majority of links that appear in-line, in text (think Wikipedia). What about the increased bandwidth usage for pre-loaded pages I don't intend to visit? What about the obvious tracking issues? These already exist. You can do <link> prefetch now ... But I THINK they are doing preload now as well so the DOM can be pre-cached. I mean you could do it on your own site but most people try to make sites FASTER not slower. I still don't grok the main advantages of Portals though.